Spinal Cord Injury

AbstractThere are many types of spinal cord injuries (SCI). Patients with SCI can symptoms that range from mild neurologic impairment (such as numbness and tingling of extremities or neck pain) to devastating total body paralysis depending on the extent of damage and where in the spinal cord the damage occurs. Management of airway, breathing and circulation are key with SCI patients, as well as immediate immobilization. With proper care and intervention, chances of survival are greatly improved.

Spinal Cord InjurySpinal cord injuries (SCIs) most commonly occur as a result of falls, motor vehicle accidents, violence, sports injuries, or any other form of impact directed to the spinal cord. Over half of SCIs occur in the adolescent or young adult age group, although the elderly population is at increased risk for SCI because of normal degeneration of the delicate spinal cord (Nayduch, 2010). These injuries can be fatal, cause permanent damage, or have temporary or no effect to the individual at all. Spinal cord injuries occur when there is damage to the neurons of the spinal cord (Huether, 2008). They are usually classified by the type of injury and where it occurs along the spinal cord. Fractures of the bones along the spinal cord or dislocations or partial dislocations of the bony structures most commonly cause SCI. The patient can experience many types of SCI including: * Concussion- short term disruption of the normal anatomy of the spinal cord * Compression- pressure on the spinal cord

* Contusion- bruising or local short term damage to the spinal cord * Laceration- a tear in the spinal cord tissue
* Transection- a complete severing of the spinal cord
* Hemorrhage- bleeding into or around the spinal cord causing pressure and irritation on the cord itself or surrounding tissues * Damage to the blood vessels...

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...Research Critique of “Race-Ethnicity, Education, and Employment After SpinalCordInjury”
Nancy Bell MARC
South Carolina State University
EDRC 532-21 Summer 2012
Research Critique of “Race-Ethnicity, Education, and Employment After SpinalCordInjury”
Introduction
The authors of this article provide a very methodical introduction. The introduction included a lot of statistical data that provided background information for the reader. . The authors focused on all of the disparities that individuals with Spinal Card Injuries (SCI) may have. There were two key things that the Authors focused on which were race and gender, however there was no mention of demographics. One of the most important factors that the authors discussed is the limited amount of research available to draw from, because of the time the research was completed and they were not looking at all of the factors.
Kraus, J.S, Lee Saunders, L., & Staten. D (2008) stated:
Although these and other studies have clearly defined the importance of race-ethnicity, injury severity, and educational attainment with employment status after SCI, they have been somewhat limited in the extent to which multiple factors are considered simultaneously, and the most comprehensive analysis of data from the NSCISC is now a decade old.
The authors do a good job of...

...1
Instructor:
Psychological 1010
April 13, 2011
SpinalCordInjury
Each year thousands in the U.S. experience damage to the nerve bundles that carry messages from the brain to the rest of the body. Studies show about 12,000 spinalcordsinjuries occur in the United States each year. About 262.000 Americans live with spinalcordinjury. The average age used to be age 29, statistic now show age 40. There are several causes of spinalcordinjury between 1990 -2003. The vast majority are caused by trauma to the back or neck. Vehicle Accidents -41.3%. Compared to Falls at 27.3%, Violence Acts–at 15% such as gunshots are the most common case. Unknown 8.5% and Sports 7.9%. The spinalcordinjury is most often caused by trama, tumors, disease, and other conditions also can be responsible. The injury nerve cells in the spinalcord to die or become permanently damage. There are treatments most commonly used the steroid methylprednisolone shot s to reduce inflammation. Another treatment is to inject cold saline into the spine to induce hypothermia, studies of this techniques still pending. Brain researchers are working on ways to regrow nerve connections lost in spinalcordinjury,...

...SPINALCORDINJURY CASE STUDY 2
Abstract
This spinalcordinjury case is about my 50 year old brother named Kevin that fell off our mother’s roof and fractured his vertebra at the T5-T9 level. He is now a paraplegic that has come to live with my family. What is his functional level to this day? What are the capabilities and functional limitations for someone with this paralysis? These are some of questions that will be addressed in this study. A person with a spinalcordinjury needs some assistive devices to enable them to be somewhat mobile. A wheelchair and a new device called a Tech RMD were purchased to make daily tasks less challenging. The rented home he will be living in needs some modifications made to the exterior and interior, to accommodate a person with this paralysis. We will be looking at every room that he will be living in and make changes to them based upon the observation and measurements taken at the on-site visit from a physical therapist. A wheel chair ramp and grab bars are examples of some adaptive devices that might be added to the home for Kevin as a result of the on-site visit. The funding for this and some other things will be covered from a few fund...

...(THIS WAS AN INFORMATIVE SPEECH I DID FOR MY COM220 CLASS ON THE STAGES OF SPINALCORDINJURY RESEARCH. IT ACTED AS AN INTRODUCTION TO MY PERSUASIVE SPEECH ON THE BENEFITS OF STEM CELL RESEARCH)
There are about a quarter of a million people in the United States living with spinalcordinjuries. In addition, between 7,600 and 10,000 new injuries occur each year. Nearly half of these new injuries will occur in young people between the ages of 16 and 30. As a person in this category, I have become very interested in the research to find a cure for spinalcordinjuries and hope to share some of the information I found with you today. In order for you to fully understand the details I will be sharing with you, I'd like to begin with a general overview of the spinalcord before moving on to the three stages of research I will cover: past research which has lead to present treatments, recent research, and the present and future research.
The spinalcord is basically a bundle of nerves which runs from the base of the brain to the middle of the waist. It is the core of the spinal column and carries nerve impulses to and from the brain to the rest of the body. When this soft, jelly-like cord is injured, severe effects are felt on the body....

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SpinalCordInjury and the effect of Morphine
Marisa Mucka
May 5, 2014
Intrathecal Morphine Attenuates Recovery of Function after a SpinalCordInjury
A human body endures a lot of injuries such as broken bones, cuts, heart attacks but one serious injury is “spinalcordinjury” which can be a obstacle to medicine. With such injury, as a spinalcord, the recovery itself can be very painful to handle so most patients are administered pain killers to minimize the unbearable pain. Drugs in the opiate category, are used a lot for the relief of spinalcordinjuries. As experiments have been conducted, they have concluded that an opiate known as a morphine can be negative to the recovery of spinalcordinjury. For example, when the rats where administered high-dosage of morphine, they seemed to delay recovery function of the rat. Studies have been closely examined , to conclude such observation. The hypothesis that Hook et al. stated was that, organisms with spinalcordinjury will endure negative side effects on recovery if morphine is administered.
Most medical officials believe that opiates would and...

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Instructor: Dr. Daniel Kifle
June 16, 2014
A Case of SpinalCordInjury
1. Describe the functional anatomy of the spinalcord using the following terms: white matter, gray matter, tracts, roots and spinal nerves.
The spinalcord consists of a superficial White matter and a deep Gray matter. The white matter consists of myelinated axons, which form nerve tracts and the Gray matter consists of neuron cell bodies, dendrites and axons. The white matter in each half of the spinalcord is organized into ventral, dorsal and lateral columns. Each column is subdivided into tracts also called pathways. A collection of axon inside the CNS is called a tract but outside the CNS it is called a nerve.
Spinal nerves arise from numerous rootlets along the dorsal and ventral surfaces of the spinalcord. Six of these rootlets combine to form a ventral root and the other six to form a dorsal root. Dorsal roots contain only sensory axons, so action potentials are conducted to the spinalcord only and the ventral root contain motor axons so action potential is conducted away from the spinalcord. This means spinal nerves have both the sensory and motor axons. Tracts combine to form roots...

...SpinalCordInjury
* Short Case Study #3
1. Describe the functional anatomy of the spinalcord using the following terms: white matter, gray matter, tracts, roots, and spinal nerves.
* White matter is one of the two components of the central nervous system, and it consists of glial cells and myelinated axons that transmit signals from one region of the cerebrum to another as well as in between the cerebrum and lower brain centers. Grey matter contains neural cell bodies. Unlike white matter, it is mostly made up of myelinated axon tracts. Tracts are bundles of fibers that connect to different parts of the CNS. Roots receive information sent by neurons. Spinal nerves refer to a mixture of spinal nerves, which carry motor, sensory, and autonomic signals between the spinalcord and the body.
2. Define the terms reflex and spinal reflex, and identify the components of the reflex arc.
* A reflex is an involuntary physiological response to a stimulus. A spinal reflex is any reflex action mediated through the center of the spinalcord. The components of the reflex arc include the receptor, sensory neuron, the integration center the motor neuron and the effector.
3. Define the term spinalcordinjury (SCI)...

...concerns to his family.
Anatomy and Physiology
SpinalCord
The spinalcord is part of the central nervous system of the human body. It is a vital pathway that conducts electrical signals from the brain to the rest of the body through individual nerve fibers. The spinalcord is a very delicate structure that is derived from the ectodermal neural groove, which eventually closes to form a tube during fetal development. From this neural tube, the entire central nervous system, our brain and spinalcord, eventually develops. Up to the third month of fetal life, the spinalcord is about the same length as the canal. After the third month of development, the growth of the canal outpaces that of the cord. In an adult the lower end of the spinalcord usually ends at approximately the first lumbar vertebra, where it divides into many individual nerve roots (L1).Spinalcordinjury (SC) occurs when a traumatic event results in damage to cells within the spinalcord or severs the nerve tracts that relay signals up and down the spinalcord. The most common types of SCI include contusion (bruising of the spinalcord) and compression (caused by pressure on the spinalcord)....